Herman Kolgen & Nicolas Bernier at Knockdown Center

Date / Location

As part of Quebec Digital Art, New York (October 22 – 25), Elektra and FuturePerfect co-present two audiovisual masters from Montreal — Herman Kolgen and Nicolas Bernier. Kolgen performs his acclaimed Dust, an audiovisual masterpiece inspired by Man Ray’s photograph “Elevage de Poussiere.” Concerned with giving form to what the eye cannot capture, Kolgen creates a spectacular world from mere dust particles, revealing their fibrous networks, deep structures and hypnotic complexities. At the threshold between the invisible and the visible, Dust becomes intoxicating and the video surface a veritable accumulation of x-rays. Simultaneously emotional and conceptual, audiences will never see or hear dust again in the same way.

Nicolas Bernier’s Frequencies (synthetic variations) is a part of an ongoing process that draws upon basic generative systems. Performed in real-time, this is Bernier’s first laptop performance, a dialogue between sound, light and material. Frequencies consists of pre-written sequences of synthetic sounds with light synchronized within small acrylic structures; a digital work visually translated into physical elements. With incredible precision and minimal means, Bernier creates a mesmerizing work where audiences can either hear the light or see the sound.